This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
This site is dedicated to wildlife and landscape photography.
I photographed this bull the day I photographed the badger. I’ve seen and photographed him before. He’s one of the Limantour herd that uses the D Ranch as part of its habitat. What’s nice about these elk is that they are often on the east side of the road to Drake’s Beach in the late afternoon. The light is usually pretty nice then.
After lunch today I decided to go out to Point Reyes. I’m anxious for the coyotes and bobcats to return to their winter ways of spending more time out during daylight hours and I hoped I’d see some today. I had barely gotten inside the Seashore when I saw a lot of badger diggings on a hillside. They looked fresh, although it had rained last night and I wondered if the wetness of the dirt made them look fresher than they were. I scanned all the diggings and the one that was highest up the hill had a brownish lump on the side of the digging. It was partly obstructed by vegetation. I grabbed my 7X binoculars and took a look. They weren’t powerful enough to be certain, but it looked like brown fur and it wasn’t moving. I assumed it was a badger and that it was asleep. I grabbed my lens and tripod and decided to move slowly up the hill to try to get close enough for a good photo. I used a telephone pole between us as cover.
I got to about 40 to 50 yards from what I knew by then was a badger and was about to shoot a few frames when out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of movement. It was a a coyote and it was running straight up the hill on my left. I have no idea why or how the coyote did that. I think it may have been sleeping somewhere to the left of the badger and me and I startled it. I started shooting the coyote as it ran, but it topped the hill quickly. I re-focused on the badger and, no surprise, it was no longer asleep. It was staring straight at me. I’m sure the coyote caught its attention first and the noise from my shutter got its attention next. I fired off several shots and the badger went down the burrow it had dug. It quickly popped back up to take a longer look at me. After a few seconds it had seen enough.
After a bit, I circled around the burrow hoping he’d come up again and, not seeing me where he expected me to be, he’d come out. It was not to be and after about 30 minutes I gave up. It was a good start though.
It turned out that that was the high point of the afternoon. I did see another coyote later. I also had one bobcat cross the road in front of me. I also saw another critter for a second or two before it disappeared into a swale. I think it was either a bobcat or coyote. Things were pretty slow elk-wise on the Tomales Peninsula.
I then headed over to Drake’s Beach hoping to see some elk on the way or maybe something at Drake’s Beach itself. On the way I saw a burrowing owl that my friend Jeff told me about just before the turnoff for Drake’s Beach. There was also a big 7-point bull elk on the east side of the road to Drake’s Beach. Drake’s Beach itself was dead. I then headed back to Pierce Point. It’s often pretty good for elk late in the day. Not today.
Things seem to be getting better at Point Reyes in terms of seeing bobcats and coyotes.
I drove out to Point Reyes recently. Things look a little greener in places. Red-tailed hawk numbers have increased. The Pierce Point Ranch area was free of fog for a change. This cow, along with some others, was grazing near the ranch. I don’t particularly like the background (or foreground) in this photo, but I do like the expression on her face. She is wondering what my intentions are and why she failed to see me until now. Now if I were a mountain lion ….
I’m happy to say that I’m done upgrading the images on my website, www.jimcoda.com. Landscapes were the last part.
This is one of my favorite landscape photos. I was at Bryce Canyon for a long weekend a couple of years ago. I didn’t have the time to cover it all. Sunrise Point was my favorite spot of those that I visited. The breadth of the view there is incredible. It’s hard to decide what to photograph. I shot various portions of what I saw there, but my favorite was this image which covers a very small part of the scene.
I’m almost done upgrading my website. Having to search for the master file for every image on my website so I can enlarge it has caused me to look at nearly all the images I have and that has taken a lot of time. It’s been very beneficial though because I’ve found a number of images that I should have put on my website when I took the photos. This little bluebird is one. It has everything I look for in a good wildlife photo. It has an appealing subject, good body position/pose, good light, good color and a clean, out-of-focus background. No distractions. It’s now on my website. To see the upgraded/larger image click here.
I’ve added a number of other overlooked images as well. The tule elk portfolio is a good example. I’ve added about 10 new images to that portfolio. I’ve also removed several.
One thing I’ve realized doing the web upgrade is that I’ve not been paying enough attention to my website since I started doing this blog. I’m probably not the only photo blogger doing that. Keeping current with my website seems like a good New Year resolution.
As I go through my images taken at Point Reyes in upgrading the images on my website I’m finding some interesting photos I didn’t appreciate when I took them. I took this photo last February. I don’t think I had any thought about it at the time. When I came across it yesterday my first thought was that it was a mourning dove. But it didn’t look exactly like a mourning dove. Band-tailed pigeon? No. It’s a Eurasian Collared-Dove. It’s native to India. It seems they got started in Florida (like so many things) and spread from there. They compete with our native mourning doves. This got me to thinking. How many non-native birds are there in Point Reyes National Seashore (and/or Marin County for that matter)? The ones I see most at Point Reyes are brown-headed cowbirds and European starlings. Sometimes I’ll see a wild turkey there. There must be house sparrows. I think there are barred owls in the Seashore, which compete with Northern spotted owls. What other birds? I don’t know. Probably several more.
I’m still upgrading my website by making each image larger. It’s a lot of work, but I think it will be a nice improvement to the site. One extra benefit is that I’m finding some images that I like that I didn’t know I had. This photo was taken in early August. As I often do, I came back to this photo after I published the blog and was struck by how wide this bull can open its mouth. For some reason, I pictured a set of canine teeth in there, developed for defensive purposes. I wonder what wolves would say — if they had any say in it? For that matter, I wonder what elk hunters would say?
